Reality of Road Safety Conditions at Critical Locations in Nablus City with a Road Mapfor Future Interventions

Nablus Governorate occupies the second level among the Palestinian governorates for the frequency of traffic crashes, while it was the first regarding the number of injuries resulting from traffic crashes during the years of this research, which are 2009, 2010, and 2011. This research aims to study the reality of traffic safety conditions at selected locations in the city of Nablus. Traffic crash data and information was collected based on crash reports from the Police Directorate in Nablus city for the study period. Data was collected at selected links and intersections in Nablus city, which are known as main and important locations in terms of their traffic conditions compared to other locations in the city. Analysis was done for several patterns of traffic conditions that may have an effect on traffic safety at these sensitive locations, such as crash rate, weather, lighting, road surface, road geometry, types and causes of crashes …etc. Studying the reality of traffic safety at these locations shows that certain conditions and patterns may contribute to the level of safety. Several results emanated from this thesis. For example, the highest intersection crash rates was at Al-Ghawi Intersection followed by the Western Graveyard Intersection and Al-Salam Mosque Intersection. As for streets, the highest rates were on Sufian Street followed by Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Street and Faisal Street. Furthermore, pedestrian crashes formed approximately 20 percent of all crashes, no problem of crashes involving pedestrians on Schools Street on the contrary to Rafeedia Street, less than 3 percent of all crashes involved old drivers, half of crashes on Al-Fatimah Intersection occurred during night lighting, less than 6 percent of crashes occurred in wet and cloudy weather conditions, female drivers were involved in only 6.6 percent of all studied crashes with 23.0 percent of crashes at the intersections of Rafeedia and Tunis Streets, and the highest percentage of crash causes (approximately 25 percent) was “failure to maintain safe distance”. This research and its results outline the realities of traffic crashes in Nablus city and form the road map for follow ups, further studies, and for improving traffic safety conditions in the city.